Blatchford does two things that wrench the illusion back to the abstract idea of "painting." One is that edges of the picture are blank — he brings the paint to within an inch or so of its border and leaves it there. The unpainted area near the edge reveals both the support and the underpainting.

The other is the tree color, which is the core issue. Blatchford cranks the color saturation of out of all relation to a realistic depiction. The lightest twigs are red, blue, or pink marks; the trunk is deep blue on the shadowed side and orange and, on the upper end, bright yellow on the lit side. These colors are outside all chromatic proportion to the range of the rest of the painting. To emphasize their artificiality, there's another tree a short distance behind this one that is mostly dark with a touch of white highlights. He is being clear about he wants to say, and not at all shy about saying it.

WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM FREDERICK LYNCH AND WILLIAM MANNING | October 03, 2013 Both Frederick Lynch and William Manning are in their late 70s, both have taught others, and, more important, both have had a consistent arc over their long working careers. You can spot and identify works by either artist from a distance.

EXPLORING A MASSIVE EXPANSION AT COLBY’S MUSEUM | August 08, 2013 The Alfond-Lunder Family Pavilion at the Colby College Museum of art, just opened, has added some 66 percent to the museum’s existing exhibition space, to a total now of some 38,000 square feet. With the gift of the 500 or so objects from the Lunder Collection, it means they can fill the space without breaking into a sweat.